Three of us shared a 6 pack of ciders last weekend. It felt good to unwind and wiggle loose.
The next morning, I thought about how much stupid and how much cruel the mormon church snowballed into my life.
I thought about being at a loss for how to process soo much fucked bullshit. I thought about the inevitable fever trauma that came while retching it out.
I thought about missed opportunities, if only the cult hadn't dunked my life in its poison--things I might have had if I had learned to reach for them sooner.
I thought about it until I blubbered. My gf held me. Thank god I'm gay.
If this song was written just before I left the church, I probably would have
listened to it a lot, both before and after my transition out. Everything I was feeling,
Tyler hits so perfectly:
Wrestling with sadness and
dysfunction. Being unable to reconcile the church's story and steadily
unfastening myself from church services (where it felt like God wasn't),
and feeling less dissonant and more stirred and humane for it.
Longing for more, like
realizing the whole plan of salvation seemed broken and corrupt beyond
even God's control, and thinking of ways for us (*all* of us) to risk
eternity in a bid to hit the reset button of divine order, all for a
chance at
doing it better next time. (Say what you will, the church's salvation narrative
always needed a compelling jump start anyway.)
How becoming an adult in the church and learning of the endowment ritual
and extraneous pieces of church history "made everything weird".
The burgeoning excitement as I began to entertain the idea that
discernment of truth could come from within me and me alone (no
spirit nor prophet's permission were needed) and realizing that maybe this is what life's
ultimate test really is.
Praying before going to sleep anyway,
and stopping in the middle of my last sincere prayer to tell God that I
guess he doesn't exist, and being unable to take it back.
Pretending to know things that we do not know is not an act of responsibility. Likewise, leaving an organization when we discover that its foundational claims are bunk is absolutely not the same as "quitting responsibility". Personal integrity carries a price, and leaving an organization that is perpetuated and motivated by powerful, irrational convictions is not for the faint of heart, nor does it demonstrate a lack of personal integrity.
